A record 46.6 million people in the United States were uninsured in 2005, up 1.3 million from 2004, and representing almost one-sixth of the population, new U.S. Census figures show.
In Rhode Island, an average of 11.4 percent of residents were uninsured between 2004 and 2005, the Census Bureau said in a report issued Tuesday. The uninsured rate is rising steadily; the average for 2003 and 2004 was 10.5 percent.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
And though Rhode Island’s RIte Care program provides coverage for the state’s neediest children, the uninsured rate for people younger than 18 is rising even faster, an analysis of the Census data by Rhode Island Kids Count shows.
Although in 2004, an estimated 5.2 percent of Rhode Island children were uninsured, as of 2006, it’s 7.6 percent – still well below the U.S. rate of 11.2 percent, but also well above the state’s 2002 rate of 4.3 percent, and high enough to strip Rhode Island of its distinction as one of the best on this front.
“In the past few years, the number of uninsured children has consistently increased due to the decrease of employer-sponsored insurance and the number of families who lose coverage every month for failing to pay the monthly RIte Care premium,” Sonia Rodrigues Carr, project director for Covering Kids and Families at Kids Count, said in a news release.
“Recent legislative changes requiring an assets test for RIte Care, increased documentation requirements for citizens, and the new law that makes undocumented children ineligible for the program are likely to prompt continued increases in the number of uninsured children in the state,” she added.
Nationally, the uninsured rate for adults was 15.9 percent, up from 15.6 percent in 2004. Ironically, even as the number and rate of uninsured Americans grew, the number of people with health coverage also rose, by 1.4 million, to 247.3 million.
Yet even as the number of people covered by government health programs increased between 2004 and 2005, from 79.4 million to 80.2 million, the rate remained the same, 27.3 percent. There was no statistical difference in the number or percentage of people covered by Medicaid (38.1 million and 13.0 percent, respectively) between 2004 and 2005, the Census Bureau said.
The share of Americans living in poverty held steady at 12.6 percent, while the nation’s median household income rose for the first time since 1999 – but only by 1.1 percent, to $46,326. Incomes rose 2.9 percent in the Northeast Medical expenses rose three times as fast as wages last year, contributing to the fifth straight increase in the number who lack health benefits, researchers say. The total has climbed every year since President George W. Bush took office, a point Democrats are likely to seize on in this year’s congressional election.
States, frustrated by the lack of federal leadership, have jumped ahead and moved toward making sure all citizens have health insurance, said Marty Sellers, a consultant who advised Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in designing his state’s program. Massachusetts passed the nation’s first law requiring all adults to have health insurance, which takes effect July 1, 2007.
The Bay State is already well ahead of the pack. A study by that state’s Division of Health Care Finance and Policy released the day before the Census figures shows the uninsured rate fell by 19 percent between 2004 and 2006, to 6 percent, or about 372,000 people.
Officials credited an improving state economy and “successful early implementation” of health care reform.
